This form of marketing has allowed me to make a full time income online for several years now and I absolutely LOVE IT!

But it hasn’t all been plain sailing – I got A LOT of things wrong before I started getting a small amount of things right.

That’s pretty much what this article is about today – it’s a way of letting perspective affiliate marketers ‘know the color of the beast’ before they get going…

The Pros and Cons With Affiliate Marketing

The Advantages:

Simple Setup: Getting into this business is super-easy and it doesn’t have to cost you a penny. Build a website find a affiliate program, choose a product or service to promote and start selling – simple!

Learning = Earning: The pretty cool thing about this business is that you are instantly handed the ability to earn…even if you haven’t necessarily learned the ropes yet!

I was lucky enough to earn commissions as I was promoting the education platform that was teaching me!

Focus On Your Core Skills: If Search Engine Optimization is your key skill, you can focus 100% on rankings and traffic generation.

Everything else is taken care of for you – all you have to do is center in on the promotional techniques that suit you best.

CreateMultiple Income Streams: I would always advise newbies to stick to a product or niche they are familiar with when starting out.

Once you have nailed this niche you have a passion for, you can simply move your template onto a product you are less familiar with.

You can quite easily create numerous income streams on subjects you have no real idea about!

Work From Anywhere: As long as you have an internet connection and a half decent laptop you are good to go (well, even a shitty laptop would do in most cases!).

Affiliate marketers can work from anywhere, so it’s ideal for those who want to work from home.

The Disadvantages:

Temptation: We all remember what happened to Anakin Skywalker right? He turned to the dark side!

Affiliate marketing has a number of HUGE temptations put in place and many ‘white hat’ marketers eventually turn to them.

I’m not judging here – I’ve made a lot of money off these ‘dark’ techniques in the past myself!

The problem is that if you get caught the vendor/merchant you are working for will also get caught – this ain’t cool!

ANY sort of false advertising will ruin your reputation and the merchants – period!

Payment: In some rare cases I have come across affiliate marketers who have seen their commissions go up in smoke!

Unfortunately if you opt to use a ‘smaller’ affiliate platform there is a risk of the product shutting down on you.